One Hour in Your Sweet Bosom
by We Who Are About To
Summary: Takes place between Act 3 Scene 7 and Act 4 Scene 1 of Richard III. Richard has been named King but has not yet been crowned; Anne knows nothing, and is surprised when he comes to her room late that night.


He crept in that night different than she had ever seen him, with no announcement of his presence until the soft click of the door told her he had entered. She rose and inclined her head, half-hoping that he had merely come in to speak of some horrible victory as sometimes happened; he could not confess to anyone who wouldn't have him imprisoned or excommunicated, and so he would come to her, and in flushed whispers boast of this enemy beheaded, that child imprisoned, that plea ignored, and he would watch her struggle to keep her face serene and he would seem hellishly pleased.

But at least on those nights he left again, left her to the cold comfort of a fire and her own brooding reflection. She knew that tonight he had come to stay.

He moved with strange haste—-he shut the door quickly and, fingers fumbling, turned the key in the lock. His face was flushed, but his breath had no smell of wine; his eyes burned, so black in the dim candlelight there was almost no blue left.

"My lord—-"

"Be still."

He seized her arm with a grip like steel and kissed her hard on the mouth. Even with the twist in his spine he stood taller than she, and his kisses always bore down. She stepped back, allowing his step to match hers, and sat down on the bed; her fingers began to work at the fastenings of her gown, ready to be done with it.

But he stayed her. "Be still, I say." With the same quick, hot, fumbling fingers, he stripped her himself, and lay her down naked on the blankets; his own clothes he did not remove, but he climbed on top of her so that her body lay between his legs and was silent, gazing down at her with eyes that could have burned her through.

"What wouldst thou be, Anne?"

She frowned. He was not himself, not the calm calculating dissembler she knew, but hot and excited and breathless, smiles flashing across his face and chasing away again so suddenly as to leave a doubt of their passage.

"My lord?"

"In all the world," he said, "what wouldst thou be?"

"Aught but wife to thee," she whispered.

"Aye, aye, but leaving that." He never minded when she said those things. She thought he had heard so many curses in his life that in his mind they were the natural course of all things, even marriage. "Then if thou must be my wife, what wouldst thou _I_ would be?"

"Honest."

He laughed and kissed her again, his teeth scraping the side of her mouth. He did have rather fine teeth.

"But in the world? To the world? If I may hold any title but Duke of Gloucester, and thou aught but Duchess thereof, is there any wouldst prefer?" He spoke fast now, planting quick kisses along her jaw and throat and neck.

"There is naught, my lord, can reconcile me to thou as husband and I as wife, and so being Duchess, I am content."

What horrible thing had he done?

But he said no more. He kissed all down her body, from the hollow of her throat to her collarbone, to her breasts and the valley between them; five kisses on each arm and one pressed to the centre of each palm, then to her ribs and dimpled belly; one trailing kiss to the inside of each thigh, one to each slender ankle and the tip of each toe; his fingers on his one good hand followed his caresses, brushing over her light and quick and dry.

Finally he raised his head and, much more slowly and painfully, began to disrobe his own person. With trembling hands she helped him; she had no idea what he had planned, or whether in this strange humour he might wish to hurt her. He never had before—physically, he was a remarkably gentle lover; he had more than once brought her slowly, methodically, carefully, his eyes gleaming, to some indescribable peak of bodily bliss, so that she could hardly see or hear, and kept her there for what seemed hours before releasing his seed and parting.

Yet she knew, from her very few infantile encounters with Edward, how quick and painful the process could be. She had bled in their marriage bed, and though he in his passionate youth had begged her pardon and sworn to control himself, their next coming together, and their next, had been as painful if not more.

But Edward had never been malicious, never _sought_ to dominate or frighten her, and she knew too well that this Duke was capable of anything. And after all, he was stronger than she; if Edward, in his ignorance and youth, could have hurt her so badly, how much more could a true man who _meant_ her harm?

His last piece of clothing fell to the floor, and he towered over her, his eyes taking in her face. Perhaps he expected her to shrink from him, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction; his naked body alone had never frightened or disgusted her, not even after knowing lean, pretty Edward. He was twisted and his arm was withered below the elbow, but his shoulders were broad, his trunk firm and strong, his legs corded with muscle. And his...he was well-provided elsewhere, too. In fact, on their wedding night she had _lost_ much of her fear of him; he was a man, after all, like other men, and if he had been straight and his arm whole he would have been impressive, even…

...attractive.

When he finally began, it seemed her fears were groundless. He started slowly and carefully, as he usually did, and she felt the stirrings of pleasure inside her that heralded the ecstatic conclusion. Other nights, though, he would rest his head in her neck as he worked and murmur wordlessly; tonight he kept himself propped above her on his arm, and fixed his eyes on her face. And the longer he stared, the more frightened she became; her heart raced from his activity and his gaze, and then, with a twist of his hips, a hot pleasure shot through her and forced a cry from her lips…

And then he took on an aspect like a demon. He smiled, such a horrible smile, and his eyes blazed like hell. He seized her whole body, himself still inside, in his arm, and forced her against the headboard; he drove into her so hard and so quick that her back slammed against it over and over, and her loins burned with the heat and the power of him. She thought surely he would spend himself quickly, but he had grown monstrous, tireless; with superhuman strength and stamina he thrust into her again and again until…

"My lord...my lord…" she cried, tears in her eyes, she could not tell whether of agonising pleasure or delirious pain; she clutched him to her, her nails digging trenches on his shoulders and him kissing her chest and neck frantically, voluptuously, and then he began to laugh, such a horrible, rasping laugh, and she felt the vibrations in his throat and the clutch of his hand and he…

" _Richard! Richard!_ "

His hot seed spilled into her and he kissed her, hard, on the mouth, pressing her back against the headboard. She didn't draw breath until he released her, and his grip on her relaxed.

"Anne," he replied, smiling.

Not the fiend's smile anymore. The same old gentle smile from their days at Middleham. The same sad, sweet, still-boyish smile, as seemed out of place on the face of a man of thirty. The smile that hid such a world of evil.

She scarcely gave him room to breathe before she pushed him, hard, and he fell on his back, his head toward the foot of the bed. Panting, bruised, flushed, she climbed on top of him and seized his throat in her hands.

"What a world of troubles and sorrow might I here prevent," she whispered, her fingers tightening. "And what a world of troubles and sorrow revenge."

He lay quiet, smiling still.

"Then do," he said.

She tried to breathe evenly. His face was so calm and still. His mouth was red and swollen from her kisses. His eyes betrayed no fear, no anger, and his brow was smooth and even. A mask of peace, an artifice of serenity...

A tear, left over from her climax, dropped from her eye onto his cheek. His lashes fluttered and closed, as if in bliss at the drop's touch.

Anne bent her head and kissed him, softly, on his lips. He pulled her unresisting hands from his throat and drew her down, so that she lay on her side, facing him, and he kissed her as he had kissed her in the garden at Middleham on her twelfth birthday, himself but fifteen; he pulled her close and kissed her again, as he had the sunny day of her father's flight to France, when he had braved all danger to see her one last time; and again, as he had the grey day she stood by the grave of King Henry and believed impossibly her Dicky of Middleham days, her first betrothed and her first affection, had come back to her; and once again, his kiss warm and sweet and gentle as the kiss of a kitten.

"Have I hurt ye, my lady wife?"

"No."

"Then why do you weep?" He brushed the tears from her cheek.

"Thou art a wicked, monstrous, bloody lord."

"Aye, but I was that before, and didst not weep."

"Thou are cold and heartless. Thou art...thou art…a villain, a foul cruel murderer, a viper, a spider."

"I grant thee, lady, but what's in this to make thee weep?"

"Thou art…"

"What am I?"

"I do love you."

He started. "What?"

"Thou black-hearted, mangle-limbed wretch, I cannot keep from loving you."

He cupped her face in his hand and tilted it upward, so that the light shone on her face.

"Lady," he said, "though thou sayest it only for this, yet say it once more, and I shall owe thee a debt for all my days."

"What debt, my lord?"

"But say it."

"My lord," she whispered, tracing one hand lightly along the line of his jaw—he pushed against her touch like a cat—"my boy, my knight, my Richard, I do love thee."

"Thou art," said he, "the only creature in all my life to breathe those words to me."

"Surely not! In all thy life, lord?"

"Yet it is so. And if only for that, gracious, queenly Anne, I must love thee again. Kiss me once more, and then to sleep. I meant to fright thee this night with a piece of news to break thy heart, but for this favour thou didst me I will not tell it thee now. For one night wilt thou sleep in quiet in Richard's bed; tomorrow, I will have forgot this boon, and we will again as we were before, for I think me thou art not a little ashamed of thy confession?"

She nodded and relaxed into his close embrace. "Even so, my lord."

His breath, ere long, evened, and she felt the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he sunk into sleep. She kissed him and closed her own eyes.

 _For one night, my own Richard_.


End file.
